STADIUM MODEL MAKING IN BINEDIT 2.2

[BuddyRo]

I've done a lot in mtm2, but I've yet to get down BinEdit to make models. Most of the tutorials out there are outdated and in need of some updating, so I thought I'd ask here. I'm in the process of making the Ford Field show, and I wanna make the dome for it. It's a pretty different and unique style dome, and I have no clue where to begin. How do I know where to put each vertex, or if the length of a certain section is right or wrong, and how do I know if everything is in the right spot? It seems so easy, yet so hard. Then how do I select where I want my textures to be, and all that stuff? I feel like I'm goin crazy!! lol Any help would be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks.
BuddyRo

[Malibu350]

Model making can be intimidating at first, but once you spend some time to get the basics down and practice it gets much easier.

I made a short tutorial that aims at teaching the basics of building a simple model from the ground up to people totally new to binedit.... here -> http://binedit.com/bei/main.htm

I also suggest editing exsisting models. That's how I got started. Try reshaping a building or whatever into something more to your needs, repaint it or remap it.
there's many models here to chose from for experimenting on the scraps page here -> http://malibu350.com

every function of binedit is explained here... http://binedit.com/help

building a stadium for a first project is probably not realistic until you are fully familiar with rearranging verts, replacing textures, remapping faces etc etc. in other words get familiar with everything before you tackle a big project or you may end up frustrated.

[Drive2Survive]

Agree with what Mal says. Your best start would be to just play around with prebuilt models - put a truck together, or modify the shape or appearance of a track prop. If you're really keen to tackle this dome, finding a model that is already similar to it and modifying it would be the far easier way to go than starting from scratch (although it sounds like this might not be an option here).

How do I know where to put each vertex, or if the length of a certain section is right or wrong, and how do I know if everything is in the right spot?

All good questions, here's some pointers based on my experience.

Firstly when building, don't worry too much about the exact size (as in dimensions) of your model. Each vertex as a coordinate location specified in nondescript "units" eg x=5, y=10, z=-3. There is a converting scale for the game (256 units = 1 foot) but you don't have to worry about that when starting a model. In 3D, everything is relative, so just pick a scale for those units that is comfortable and familiar for you to work with. Say to yourself, "self, the length of 1 unit is 1 centimeter/1 inch/1 banana" and work as if it were like that. For example, I live in the metric part of the world so I find it easiest to think the sizes of things in metric units like mm or cm. After you've finished making the model, you can resize it using BinEdit's Resize dialog to get into the right scale for the game.

Keep some paper and a pencil handy. Ruled/graph paper might be ideal, but plain paper is fine. Depending on how you like to work, you might like to blueprint your object on paper before you start, plan the face structure and where the vertices need to go and measure or calculate the coordinates you need to input (JBrossack used to build many of his replica trucks this way). Or you might prefer to just eyeball it and use the paper for making quick sketches of relative vertex positions for adding faces and to note down vertex/face numbers and coordinates, which is what I do.

Remember, you never have to get vertex coordinates right the first time, as you can always move them. I always find it's easiest to get something on screen and change it so if you're stuck for what the particular coordinates of a new set of vertices should be, sketch out a quick diagram of how you want the additional faces to go together and note down their numbers, then in BinEdit just add vertices at an arbitrary/guessed coordinate location(s) and add in the faces according to your diagram. This will put something on the screen, and you can then move the vertices around to make the shape you want. The X/Shift-X, Y/Shift-Y and Z/Shift-Z key combos are magic for this as they allow to scoot a vertex around the screen and see things take the new shape in real time.

[BuddyRo]

thanks guys. i'm pretty familiar w/ BinEdit. I know how to delete faces, map face groups to textures, and all that stuff, but modeling is the only thing I've yet to accomplish in it. I keep thinking of the vertices and coordinates like those graph picture things we all did in middle school. ya know, you have the points to plot on the x and y axis, and connect the lines to make a picture. is that a good way to think of it, cause I'm thinking that's how it works, but the z-axis is messing me up. And yes, I am making a blueprint of each section on graph paper (i.e.- the bottom banner wall, then each section of the lower crowd level, each section of the upper crowd level). Now should i make each section of the crowd seperately? Not the levels, but like each section on the lower level, top level, etc.... or make it all one piece? And how would I draw it out on graph paper with the Z axis too? Do I draw it 3D? Cause I was drawing a top view and side views. What else should I blueprint? And do I have to change the scale in BinEdit, or just use whatever works for me on the graph paper? Any suggestions for scale numbers to make it easier when adding vertices? Thanks again for the help.

[Drive2Survive]

Hey Bud, sounds like you have a good familiarity to build on there, which I hope this will achieve.

I keep thinking of the vertices and coordinates like those graph picture things we all did in middle school. ya know, you have the points to plot on the x and y axis, and connect the lines to make a picture. is that a good way to think of it

Sure, it does lend itself quite a bit to being like a connect-the-dots when you look at the model as a wireframe. The difference is that the model is made out of faces (polygonal surfaces, as opposed to lines) that join up the vertices, and it's in three dimensions instead of on your two-dimensional page. Otherwise, the vertices are your dots and act as the anchors of the corners of your faces, and if you draw lines along the edges of the faces (what we call a wireframe rendering) then it's just like your school graphing problem or kid's connect-the-dots.

but the z-axis is messing me up

Your graph/connect-the-dots picture on paper is in two dimensions. You can define the relative location of any point on the page using two coordinate values, horizontal (left/right on the page) and vertical (up/down on the page). These are typically called x and y axes. For 3D we need a third coordinate in the horizontal forward/back direction (or the direction going into and out of the page) and this is what we designate the z axis. So x is left/right, y is up/down and z is forward/back.

After you understand that the only thing you have to manage is which direction on the axis are positive and negative numbers (i.e. the orientation of the left/right forward/back up/down).

Now should i make each section of the crowd seperately? Not the levels, but like each section on the lower level, top level, etc.... or make it all one piece?

Not real sure what you mean here, I think you'll have to make your own call. As a truck maker I find it often easier to split a truck into parts to build models seperately and then combine them - for example I might build the body model as a single model and save it as a bin file, and build detail parts to add to it (such as the engine) as seperate models/files. Then use BinEdit's Insert menu item to combine the individual models into one model to make the complete truck. This can make things easier, because if you try to build it all in one go as one model, you can end up with a very complicated model that takes ages to cycle through to the vertices/faces you want to work on. Plus by keeping things seperate you can duplicate the individual model parts easily (say if you have a row of lights on a rollbar) and reuse them in other projects. The trick however is making it all fit together when you come to combine it, which requires careful preparation to make sure the resulting models will line up correctly and/or further work after they are combined.

In your case, for a track prop you might also want to divide it into sections for another reason and that has to do with model placement in track maps and the way the game draws objects. I believe if you have a really massive object (such as a dome made as one model) it may not appear correctly in game due to the way the game handles player proximity to models? I'm no expert on this, it will require someone else to guide you on this, but you probably needn't worry about it too much as you can easily slice your model into parts or combine parts into one model after you've made it/them to get the best result in the game.

And how would I draw it out on graph paper with the Z axis too? Do I draw it 3D? Cause I was drawing a top view and side views.

That's a perfectly fine way to go about it. Drawing a 3D view is a bit tricky because a sheet of paper only has two dimensions. Top and side views are the standard way to deal with it (ever see architectural plans, say for a house?). With a top-down view, the viewpoint is aligned with the y-axis which effectively removes it and leaves the two horizontal axes (x left/right and z forward/back - though they are drawn horizontally and vertically on your page). Two axes = easy to draw on paper. Then with your side view the viewpoint is aligned with the x-axis, eliminating it and leaving the vertical y and horizontal z axes. And you can also do front/rear view drawings to eliminate the z and leave the x and y axes. Any two of those viewpoints will allow you to find the three-dimensional coordinate location of a point by cross-referencing the two-dimensional coordinates between the two plans (i.e. you look at the top-down view drawing to find the horizontal x and z location coordinates, and the side-on to find the corresponding y height coordinate).

If you're not aware, check the BinEdit toolbar for the 3D View button (reference). Clicking that changes from full-screen 3D view to quartered view that displays side, top and rear views of the model. These should map directly to your plan drawings.

And do I have to change the scale in BinEdit, or just use whatever works for me on the graph paper? Any suggestions for scale numbers to make it easier when adding vertices?

BinEdit works in integer units. A unit is indivisible, that is you can only have whole numbers, you can't place a vertex at a coordinate of 0.5. Therefore you should choose your scale so that a BinEdit unit becomes the smallest indivisible measurement that is sensible for the object you are building and suits the level of accuracy you want. To speak of my example truck body, that's an object that in real life is of the scale of 5 or 6 metres long so I would tend to think of units as 1 unit = 1cm or 1mm. In the case of your dome, that is an object that is probably tens of metres wide or high so you might find it easier to think of 1unit = 10cm, say, depending on how much fine-tuning and accuracy you want. In other words, you wouldn't use 1unit = 100metres because that wouldn't give you the fine tunability you'd need (I'm sure the dome would have details that couldn't be very well approximated by 100m increments) and you wouldn't use 1unit = 0.001mm because that would be so fine that all your vertices would need coordinates that are large numbers (several zeroes on the end).

Anyway, that's assuming you're working off real measurements - if you've drawn a plan on graph paper I'd say it would be best to use whatever scale is represented on that. If you've drawn your dome 20 grid boxes high, whether or not the dome in real life measures 20 metres high, then you may prefer to use a scale like 1unit = 0.1 grid box because this cuts down on brain work having to convert between your plan and your model, and makes transferring measurements/estimates from your plan to the model much simpler.

Well I don't know if I've written anything ground-breaking, seems all commonsense. Does it help?

[runt9]

well, unfortunately, he hasn't posted any of his work here. if you check over on vales, in the show your projects topic, he's made a very large part of the dome.

[BuddyRo]

yea, sorry guys..i'm actually almost done w/ the dome lol. thanks for all your help...
[/img]FORDFIELDER.jpg

[Mat-Allum]

Wish I could see your image.. this forum won't upload images from your computer to post in the boards. To show us the pic, you'll need to upload it - here's a good place:

www.imageshack.us

Can't wait to see it!

[BuddyRo]

Sorry, hope this works...
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[Drive2Survive]

That's looking pretty accomplished!

[Slayer]

Yeah!